Ocean breaches concrete barrier at Port Hueneme's depleted beach

The left side of this photo taken early Sunday shows a toppled concrete barrier at the beach in Port Hueneme. As high surf pounded the beach, water washed out the sand under the barrier and it fell, causing water to splash onto the shore, rocks and the sidewalk.

With surf higher than normal on Saturday, Port Hueneme officials said a concrete barrier at the city's sand-depleted beach was breached by seawater for a time Saturday.

Police Sgt. Rick Perez said waves washed away the sand underneath a concrete barrier, causing the barrier to fall. Perez said waves were splashing onto the shore, rocks and the sidewalk, but never onto Surfside Drive, which runs parallel to the beach.

Although there have apparently been similar incidents recently, "this is the worst breach we've had," Perez said.

Perez said the city engineer had been on the scene and said condos in the area were in no danger.

The concrete barrier is 3 or 4 feet tall and was intended to keep sand from covering the sidewalk, Perez said. With much of the beach eroding away recently, the city also has placed boulders in the area to help prevent waves from damaging city infrastructure such as sidewalks and streets.

After the breach was noticed around 8 p.m. Saturday, crews put up chain-link fencing around the affected area. At the scene early Sunday, chain-link fencing, sandbags, traffic cones and "caution" tape were visible.

"We had a breach farther down that already had a fence around it, and we took part of that fence and put it here," Perez said.

Late Saturday, a portion of Surfside Drive had been blocked to traffic, but the cones were removed just before midnight.

Police said they planned to monitor the site, particularly around high tide from 5 to 7 a.m. Sunday. If anything changes, they could move the fences, Perez said.

The fences were only a temporary measure.

"They're going to place granite rock on top of the sand to secure the wall," Perez said. That could happen on Monday or Tuesday, he said.

The area was vulnerable because much of the city's beach has eroded away in recent months, and officials had been warning something like this could happen.

The beach is depleted because as the washes away, it is not replenished naturally. That's because construction of the Port of Hueneme decades ago disrupted sand's normal flow southward along the coast.

To compensate for that, the federal government periodically dredges sand from the mouth of Channel Islands Harbor to replenish the beach. However, due to federal budget cuts, the last dredging did not supply as much sand as it usually does. As a result, there was less sand on the beach in the first place, and heavy surf in recent months has taken a toll.

In addition to losing much of the beach that draws people to Port Hueneme, city leaders have feared damage from the waves. As a result, they have pleaded with federal officials to provide a dredging earlier than normal, to no avail.